When the trilateral becomes a quadrilateral

Karzai has now ordered that the Afghan forces will never approach the US for air support in their military operations. Source: Getty images

The format of the trilateral dialogue between India, America and Afghanistan can really pick up habitation and name only if it transforms into a ‘quadrilateral’ by including Pakistan.

In the run-up to the second session of the
Trilateral Dialogue between the United States, India and Afghanistan, being
held in Delhi on February 18, the state department in Washington announced that
the American side shares a “common vision” with India and Afghanistan “for a
strong, peaceful, and prosperous region” and has a solemn pledge taken to work
together with those two countries on “common challenges and opportunities
including combating violent extremism, strengthening cultural exchanges and
increasing regional trade and economic integration.”

The US announcement said Washington regards the
Trilateral Dialogue as reflecting its commitment to “transparency and
coordination” on the Afghan problem.

The trilateral held its first session in September
in New York and five months later on February 18 it is meeting again with Delhi
playing the role of the host.

The trilateral has nothing substantial to claim to
its credit so far as an achievement in the search of a settlement in
Afghanistan. Nor is it the case that the three countries are effectively
“coordinating”. In fact, the three countries have sharply divergent positions
on various critical issues related to the Afghan situation.

Thus, there is no shred of evidence that President
Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai consulted Delhi before
announcing in Washington in December following their meeting in the White House
the acceleration of the Afghan ‘transition’ to be completed by the spring. The
Indians would have come to know about the development from media reports.

Again, Obama gave no advance intimation to Delhi
regarding his announcement on Tuesday that he proposed to withdraw 34000 US
troops from Afghanistan within the one-year period ahead and that he is
determined to wind up the war by end-2014. India is known to be sceptical about
ending the war prematurely when an acute security situation prevails in
Afghanistan.

On the contrary, Karzai not only welcomed Obama’s
announcement but is positively ecstatic. He disregards the Indian scepticism
and is confident that the security situation in Afghanistan is will stabilize.
According to the Afghan defence ministry spokesman, “We are ready to fill the
vacuum and we are ready to take full responsibility for security in 2013.”

Again, Washington and Kabul are in close touch with
Islamabad to kick-start formal peace talks with the Taliban. The three capitals
are coordinating the release of the Taliban prisoners in Pakistani custody.
Kabul and Islamabad have reportedly facilitated the travel of the Taliban
officials to Qatar with a view to opening the Taliban office in Doha. Some
reports suggest that the US is already talking to the Taliban officials in
Doha.

Limits to cogitations

Now, there seems to be any coordination with Delhi.
Also, one thing is clear here. Both the US and Afghanistan recognize the
centrality of Pakistan in the search for any durable settlement in Afghanistan.
However, Delhi maintains strong reservations about the wisdom of according to
Pakistan any special role in negotiating an Afghan settlement.

Actually, Delhi feels peeved that Britain recently
hosted its third ‘trilateral’ in London with Pakistan and Afghanistan (where
the agenda apparently related to the reconciliation process with the Taliban)
but India wasn’t kept in the loop. Delhi is particularly unhappy that the ‘red
lines’ – talks with Taliban can take place only if they give up violence and
agree to abide by the Afghan constitution, etc. – are increasingly getting
blurred with the US and Britain in desperate hurry to reach a settlement
somehow with the insurgent groups. The London meeting resolved that a
settlement would be reached within the next 6 months.

Of course, ‘transparency’ is the great casualty in
all these currents and crosscurrents. The US and Britain keep Delhi briefed
strictly on a ‘need-to-know’ basis and the Indians are more or less left to
figure out on their own as to what is actually going on.

Arguably, Delhi enjoys much better ‘transparency’
with Kabul than with the US. Karzai is known to have warm feelings toward
India. However, Karzai’s equations with Washington remain problematic and it
seems there is nothing Delhi can do bring about better chemistry between the
two squabbling allies. The ouster of Karzai at the end of his current term in
office and his replacement by a pliant figure as the figurehead in Kabul is a
strategic objective for Washington.

Karzai has shown his irritation with Washington on
at least three occasions in the past fortnight. He ignored the US invitation to
the ceremony marking the handing over of the NATO military command to a new
general consequent upon the end of term of General John Allen. On the other
hand, his first ‘engagement’ with Allen’s successor, Joseph Dunford has been to
summon the general to his office and reprimand him about the latest instance of
war atrocity by the NATO forces in an air strike in the eastern province of
Kunar that killed 10 people, including five children and four women last Wednesday.

To cap it all, Karzai has now ordered that the
Afghan forces will never approach the US for air support in their military
operations. “I will issue a decree tomorrow that no
Afghan security forces in any circumstances can ask for the foreigners' planes
for carrying out operations on our homes and villages,” Karzai said during a
speech at the Afghan National Military Academy in Kabul on Saturday. He added:

Our forces ask for air support from
foreigners and children get killed in an airstrike… We are happy the foreign
troops are withdrawing from Afghanistan… I have been arguing with the foreign
troops, don't bombard our houses, don't go to our villages, don't disrespect
our people. And we hear our forces partnered with foreign forces are violating
human rights… America is not the owner of this country, Pakistan is not the
owner of this country, Germany is not the owner of this country, France is not
the owner of this country… And fortunately, we will show to the world that we
can protect our country, and we can defend our country.”

Does this show up ‘transparency’
or ‘coordination’ between Kabul and Washington? Certainly not. But the
fundamental contradiction lies elsewhere. Even as the US state department
claims to have commonality of interests with Delhi regarding the future of
Afghanistan, the Pentagon harbours other thoughts.

From the Pentagon’s viewpoint,
the bottom line is that the help and cooperation from the Pakistani military
leadership is crucial and nothing should be done or said to jeopardise it.
Clearly, there are inherent limitations to the US’s cogitations with Delhi over
the Afghan situation.

The Pentagon’s angst is
understandable. According to a New York Times report last weekend, Pentagon hopes to move 60 percent of its accumulated military
hardware out of Afghanistan by way of Pakistan, as the American troops begin
their withdrawal. The report brings out the stark ground realities of the
US-Pakistan tango.

Suffice to say, the
US’s dependence on Pakistani goodwill and cooperation is at an all-time high
level today in the entire 11-year period of the Afghan war. In strategic terms,
it is inevitable that the high level of US dependence on Pakistan’s cooperation
will continue even beyond 2014 once the American military bases get established
in Afghanistan. For a variety of reasons, including geopolitical, Pentagon’s
preference will be to rely on the Pakistani transit routes rather than on the
Northern Distribution Network.

From the US
viewpoint, therefore, in comparison with Pakistan, India’s role in the Afghan
situation will always remain marginal. What then, is the expectation behind the
US-India-Afghan ‘trilateral’?

The moribund New
Silk Road

In a nutshell, the
Trilateral Dialogue is a pragmatic arrangement. The idea of such a format
occurred to the American mind at a time when the US’s ties with Pakistan were
in a deep state of chill and Washington found it had very little leverage with
the Pakistani military leadership. Any suggestion, howsoever vague, of a
US-India condominium would have its own utility as a template in Washington’s
‘psywar’ against Pakistan.

In the present
instance, the ploy probably worked. The fact remains that in the short period
of 5 months since last September when the US hosted in New York the first
‘trilateral’ with India and Afghanistan, there has been a marked improvement in
the climate of the US-Pakistan relationship.

Unsurprisingly,
India too remains enthusiastic about the Trilateral Dialogue. The format helps
Delhi to break out of the stark isolation it faced over the Afghan situation.
Its voice and opinions regarding the Taliban militancy and/or the
reconciliation process involving the Taliban have been consistently ignored by
all players; there are no takers for Delhi’s offer to be a key mentor of the
Afghan armed forces; the Indian lamentations about the Afghan ‘transition’ fall
on the deaf ears of the ‘international community’.

The point is, all
major players today see Pakistan as the principal protagonist in the Afghan
situation and none of them would want to risk annoying the Pakistani military
by stressing a special partnership with the Indians.

So, what is the
Trilateral Dialogue all about? The format indeed helps the US to continue to
nudge Pakistan to be more cooperative and the game plan meshes well with the
facade of the US-India strategic partnership. Again, it helps to an extent to
harmonize the sharply divergent US and Indian viewpoints with regard to the
Afghan situation. Most certainly, it enables India to keep itself abreast of
the developments – to the extent, of course, that the Americans and Afghans
would be willing to share confidential information.

The US state
department is represented at the trilateral by Washington’s point person for
South and Central Asia Robert Blake. But, significantly, the deputy US special
representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Dan Feldman will also attend the
meeting in Delhi. There could be a signal herein to Islamabad that the US
accepts that India has legitimate interests and a meaningful role to play on
the Afghan chessboard.

However, at the end of the
day, the format of the Trilateral Dialogue can really pick up habitation and
name only if it transforms into a ‘quadrilateral’ by including Pakistan as
well. Arguably, such a quadrilateral would be the perfect instrument for the US
to instil fresh life into the moribund New Silk Road project. The likelihood of
that happening seems remote as of now, what with Pakistan single-mindedly
working toward limiting India’s influence in Afghanistan and India sparing no
breath to caution against the dangers of what it perceives to be the diabolical
projection of Pakistani influence into Afghanistan. However, it also cannot be
ruled out altogether in the fullness of time.